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“After Paul Newman had appeared as Billy the Kid in a Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse play that I had written, Paul, [his wife] Joanne Woodward and I all became friends — I am godfather to Paul and Joanne’s first-born child. Paul, Joanne and I at their Connecticut house. Paul is goofing. One significant thing we [Paul and I] had in common was being the same age. This meant that when I was 17 I enlisted in the US Army; when Paul was 17 he enlisted in the US Navy. Each of us missed having a youth, which we later compensated for a bit too long after adolescence had officially ended for us.”

Collection Gore Vidal

“Family pictures of the Newmans and me. The first is when they were about to be married and the final is when we are recalling those merry days of youth. Time is getting short. At least Paul chose his time of departure. He had missed an appointment with the doctors for chemotherapy and when Joanne reminded him the next morning that he had to go back, he said, firmly, ‘I am never going back.’ And so he died on his own terms, without undergoing the dreaded chemotherapy.”

Collection Gore Vidal

“[This] photograph of Mrs. Onassis-to-be that she signed, mystifyingly to me of all people, ‘Jacqueline Kennedy.’ She hated being called Jackie and instructed her Kennedy sisters-in-law, “the toothy girls,” as she called them, that henceforth she wanted to be known as Jacqueline, causing the droll Eunice to remark, ‘Ah, Jacqueline? ... because it rhymes with queen?’ ”

AP

“Jack here was just a senator at the time. [On another occasion the playwright Tennessee Williams, Jack and myself] had a shooting contest in Palm Beach. Tennessee stared at Jack and muttered to me, ‘That boy has a nice ass.’ I replied, ‘Stop it, that’s the next president of the United States.’ Tennessee said, ‘No, he’s not going to be the next president, because the American people hate with great violence attractiveness in anything, but particularly politicians.’ Later, I told Jack about the compliment of his ass, and he said, ‘Why, that’s very exciting.’ ”